5/22/22 1 Peter 2:2-10 “Here, Let’s Build the Church Together”

20 May 5/22/22 1 Peter 2:2-10 “Here, Let’s Build the Church Together”

5/22/22   1 Peter 2:2-10        “Here, Let’s Build the Church Together”

A while back, I was reading about money and us.  There were some interesting things.  Did you know for example, that if you made $100,000 a year, it wouldn’t be enough?  You would want more and try to get more.  More than half the people in this country think their financial situation is fair to poor and 25% of these people make more than $75,000 a year.  These figures come from a 20 year old Roper study but I think they still apply today because we are still greedy.  David Meyers draws some conclusions for us.  He says that our per capita income has more than doubled in the last few decades and only 1/3 of the people consider themselves to be happy.  He goes on to say that we have never been so self-reliant or so lonely.  We have never been so free and our prisons so overcrowded.  We have never been more educated or had such high rates of juvenile delinquency, despair and suicide.  We have never in our history had so many pleasurable things to do or been so prone to broken and miserable marriages.  I think that these are some startling observations.  I think that God has given us so many good and nice things and we, as a people, just turn our backs on Him.  Today, we are going to talk a little bit about building our church and our relationship with God as we look at our reading from Peter.

Rick Warren tells about how he built a log cabin in the woods in his spare time several years ago with the help of his dad.  They had to clear something like 37 huge pine trees just to have a place to put the cabin.  Then he had to dig something like 60-5’ deep holes and fill them with gravel for drainage as the ground was so wet.  It took them 10 exhausting and hardworking weeks to get this far and all they had to show for it at the end of that first summer was a clearing with a square foundation.  His dad who had built 110 church buildings in his life time surveyed the situation and said, “Cheer up, son! When you’ve finished laying the foundation, the most critical work is behind you.”  This is true of anything we do.  One of the problems in our churches today is that we have not laid a good foundation.  In many places there is no foundation at all or in the case of the UMC, it has eroded away to almost nothing.

Our first line today, tells us that when we first come to Christ we are like newborn babies and we crave pure spiritual milk.  The audience that Peter is addressing is one that has been bombarded by every kind of belief imaginable.  Then the people would start to pick and choose the things that Peter taught them and mixed them with other religions.  This really sounds kind of familiar as our society is so good at picking and choosing what they want to believe.  Once again, the UMC is very good at picking what they want to believe and not following the Bible!

One of the things that we hold to be quite sacred in our churches is the baptism of our infants.  This marks the beginning of their journey to a relationship with Jesus Christ.  All of us who are members of the church take an oath that we will be there to help these kids as they grow.  Basically, we all sponsor the child.  The child becomes our son or daughter.  We would never think of giving these babies that we baptize a big old juicy steak for lunch.  In the same way we cannot start to teach our children about the trinity or the aspects of salvation until they are old enough and mentally ready to understand.

The same holds true for an adult who comes to know Christ.  When adults come into that wonderful, fulfilling personal relationship with Jesus, they really don’t know much else.  So, our job is to bring these people along slowly and let them grasp the various aspects of the teachings of Jesus.

It is very important on our part that we give our young and old, pure spiritual milk.  When we start to mix the world view into our spiritual teachings, we had better make sure that it is Scriptural. The Bible tells us that certain behaviors are wrong and there is no way that they are ever made right.  Wrong is wrong and right is right.  We are to always teach the pure things of Jesus.  Remember that just because 99% of the people are doing something, does not make it right.  If it is wrong in Scripture, then it is wrong no matter how many people think it is right.  And that is what the UMC is doing right now.  They have quit following the Scripture and are following society.  This is so wrong.  We are to stand firm in the Scripture in the face of the devil.  This is not easy but you folks can do a wonderful job and I pray that you will continue so and continue long into the future.

So, we take this spiritual milk and we then make it into a firm foundation.  We all know a little bit about foundations.  Many of us have houses and we know that we have to have good foundations especially in this area that has been prone to flooding and wet conditions.  Ladies, you know that cosmetic companies try to sell you foundation as a part of your make up.  I’m not sure how that works but you do and that is the important part.

We also know that our church needs a good foundation.  Many churches are in trouble all over the country because of their foundations.  I have talked of this many times and I think you all know what I mean.  Churches need to focus on the Bible and not someone’s interpretation of the Bible.  I think that too many churches rely on someone else’s ‘take’ on what the Bible says.  I don’t know about you, but I can read and understand the Bible just fine.  I don’t need the help of a so-called scholar.  I think what happens to these Biblical scholars is that they have to come up with something new so that they can justify their jobs.  They have to be published if they are teaching in a seminary.  So, they read things into the Bible that aren’t there and then they write very convincing books about heresy.  Then we all have a tendency to believe them because they have a doctor of theology or some other degree. It sounds like they are the authorities.  But be careful of what you read.  I would like you folks to stick to the Scriptures and I pray that you never change.  Just because the rest of the world does something, doesn’t make it right.  Stick to the Bible and you will not go wrong.

So, churches need a foundation and we are the church.  You are the church.  This building is called a church but it is just a building.  Somewhere along the line we have decided that our church buildings are sacred.  They are not.  They are just wood and concrete or block.  There is nothing special about them except that this is where the church meets.  We could meet anyplace and it would be a church.

So now we have a new person to the faith and we need to somehow help them get a good foundation and pure spiritual food.  I think that one of the best ways to build a good foundation for anything is to be debt free.  This is what I mean.  To begin with we have to realize that we are all slaves to sin.  You won’t hear much about sin in the UMC but here it is.  We like to think that this is especially true of people who don’t know Jesus but it is also true of us.  I look around the world that I live in and operate in and all I see is sin, sin and more sin.  It is everywhere and every place.  We have become so accustomed to it that we think that much of it is ok.  It’s good!  We have been told that the lesser of two evils is ok.  Well, the lesser of two evils is still evil!  Satan tells us that if you just do this one little thing that really isn’t that bad, all will be ok.  Well, it is not ok.  Sin is sin.  It is there in front of all of us and it needs to be rejected!

We are to be setting a good example for new people to the faith.  But we are in debt to sin.  It controls all of our lives.  So how does the new person or the veteran Christian survive?  You survive by getting rid of this sin debt.  Once a person comes to Christ, his or her sin debt has been taken by Jesus and you have it no more.  However, you still sin and you sin just about every day.  So, you all need prayer time.  I know it may seem like I harp on this but you need this so you can keep washing away your sins that happen daily.

Think of it this way.  If you have an ordinary credit card and charge something on it, then you owe the card company money.  Let’s say that you charge something every day and you don’t pay for it.  It will not be too long before you have a huge balance and you become overwhelmed by the debt you have.  However, if you charge something every day and then pay for it every day, then there is no debt and you don’t even think about it.  It is the same way with sin.  If you haven’t confessed your sin to Jesus for quite a while, your sin debt may be overwhelming and you just can’t find it in yourself to confess.  It’s just too much.  But if you confess every day, then it is gone every day and you are totally clean every day.  This is one of the core acts of our faith.  If you want that happy, wonderful life in Christ, then go to Jesus every day and confess.  It’s just like taking a bath and getting cleaned up every day.  I find it best to do it every morning so that I can have a fresh start on the day.  Do it whenever you want but do it.  It is that important.

Now I would like to talk a little about the royal priesthood.  This passage once again tells us that only believers know much of the things that Peter is talking about.  Non-believers cannot understand what we do.  They cannot understand why we would do what we do.  I have had several people comment on some of the things I say online.  Everybody has said that they need to just pray for the people who reply so negatively to me because it is very obvious to us that these people are lost.  They need Jesus more than anything else in life.  But if you try to tell them that, they will just laugh at you.  And that is the way it is.  All we can do is keep trying to present this message.

And notice that I said we.  There is a huge misconception about the ministry.  Another big failing of our modern church is our inability to do ministry because we haven’t hired someone to do something.  There are places where they cannot do youth ministry because they don’t have a youth pastor.  Or they cannot do visitations because they don’t have a visitation pastor or they can’t have education because they don’t have an education pastor.  Well, here is a little news flash for everyone, you are these pastors.  You are the royal priesthood.  You are the head minister right beside me or Pastor Rob.  There is not one person here who is any better or worse than me because we are all called to ministry.

It is called the royal priesthood by Peter.  The people of Peter’s time knew what this meant and they had to be a bit overwhelmed.  After all, priests were people who had been set aside.  They were special.  The royal priesthood was the very top of the line priests.  These were the rulers of the church.  Here Peter is telling them that they are these royal priests.

It is the same way with us today.  You are the royal priesthood.  You are the top-of-the-line priests, not me, but you.  You are all in this together and you are all equal.  The differences that we have are in how we are gifted.  I am not a gifted administrator.  I am not gifted in making things with my hands.  Hopefully, I am gifted so that I can communicate the message of God to you each week.  The things that I can’t do, you can and visa-versa.  We should all be able to complement each other and help the church to grow.

Then there are the things that we all need to be doing whether we are gifted or not.  These are things like shoveling the sidewalk or picking up after yourself in the church or visiting someone who is sick or down and out.  This is an area where I think that we can all improve.  When you know that someone is sick or hurt or having a terrible turn in life, don’t talk to other people about it.  Go to that person.  Chances are you will not even have to say anything.  All you will have to do is listen.  I was just reading an article about how hard it is for us to listen.  And after all the evidence was weighed it came down to this.  You were given 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason.  You should listen twice as much as you speak.

Anyway, we are all the ministers of this church.  When we work together, we can have a lot of fun doing things.  If you have to clean the church by yourself, it can be unnerving, a huge job, a chore.  But if you find someone to help it can be a lot of fun or at least more fun than by yourself.  It is same way for all ministries.  We were made to work together and when you do, you will get the most satisfaction.

This is your foundation.  This is who you are.  When new Christians come to us, they should see how we work together for Jesus.  They see that we pray together and read the Bible.  All the things that we do for Christ should be obvious.  This is the way to grow new Christians.  If you folks relied on me or Pastor Rob for all of this, you would get nowhere.  It is up to the royal priest hood to grow the church.  It is up to you.

Jeff Strite tells the story of a new boy at Vacation Bible School who was brought in with the others for the closing ceremonies.  The teacher saw that the boy had only one hand and feared that the others might embarrass him by their remarks.  But she continued with the ceremony because she would have only drawn attention to his problem if she tried to warn the children now.  “Now, let’s build our churches,” she said as they came to the close of the service.  “Put your hands together now, here is the church, here is the steeple…”  Suddenly she was aware of what she had just done was what she feared the children would do.  After a moment of awkward silence, a little girl sitting next to the boy with one hand, held hers up and said, “Here, let’s build the church together.”  Jesus says to each and every one of us, “Here, let’s build the church together.”  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.